An Investigation of the Relationship between Sources of Meaning of Life and Mental Health

Since Frankl (1985) has introduced the role of meaning in life in mental health, some psychologists tried to operationalize this concept and study in this field (Crumbaugh and Maholic, 1964; Batista & Almond, 1973; Steger et al., 2006). By development of new instrument in the domain of life's meaning by Schnell (2009), the wider investigation of mental health and meaning in life has been provided. The present study aims at determining the relationship between four sources of life including life meaningfulness, the crisis of life's significance, spirituality, and religiosity and indices of mental health. Therefore, a sample comprising 126 participants (53= female; 73= male) among the students of University of Tehran carried out the questionnaire for investigating the sources of life's meaning (SoMe) and a brief form for the scale of depression, anxiety, and stress (DASS-21). The results were analyzed by Pearson Correlation. Among the variables of life's meaning, the crisis of life's meaning showed the highest positive correlation with depression (r = 0.62, p 0.01) and stress (r = 0.39, p 0.01). Also, the life meaningfulness showed the highest negative relationship with depression (r = -0.52, p 0.01) and stress (r = - 0.34, p 0.01). In conclusion, considering the meaning of life as an important associate of mental health seems essential in order to decrease the depression and stress, and improving the general health of society.